Holds True Today (This is an excerpt from a 1958 interview of Ayn Rand on the Mike Wallace Show. Ayn Rand was a child during the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia before visiting America and staying. Ayn Rand has a brilliant mind and fought against communist philosophy present in America in the 1930’s – 1950’s particularly. Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged, speaks of how collectivism will destroy America’s free enterprise economic system. Ayn believes we should not be allowed to vote on EVERY issue. She disdains government forced coercion in any name, even social inequalities. Some 50 years later we can see the devastation caused by social welfare programs that she warned against. Ayn Rand was a staunch defender of capitalism and attributed ALL economic problems to government meddling. Ayn says we Americans have not been given a choice between freedom and collectivism as both political parties both subscribe to socialism tenants. She says government “regulations are creating robber-barons” and that “capitalists with government help is the worst of all economic phenomenon”. )

Obama’s action in trying to ease his friend Valerie Jarrett into his old Senate seat will fuel cynicism about politics, argues Toby Harnden.

In a year when Americans are arguably more cynical and disillusioned about politics than at any time since Watergate, the corruption trial of Rod Blagojevich is a sobering reminder of how its practitioners operate.

Although “Blago”, the foul-mouthed bouffant buffoon, is the main attraction of the Chicago production, the former Illinois governor’s reluctant co-star is Barack Obama. The President forms part of the proceedings each day even though the judge has spared him a personal experience.

Reports of the Blago trial cannot make comfortable reading for the White House for they provide what Mary Mitchell, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist, described as “an unfiltered look at how the sausage is made in Illinois”

Illinois, of course, is the state that gave us President Obama. It is where he cut his teeth as a community organiser and where he first began to ascend the greasy pole of politics by taking his seat in the state senate.

At issue in the Blago trial is whether the then governor was trying to sell the United States Senate seat that Obama ascended to in 2004 after his initial Republican opponent imploded.

Blago had the power to appoint a new Senator when the seat was vacated because of Obama’s presidential election victory in November 2008. Clearly, he thought the seat was a valuable prize.

“I got this thing and it’s f—— golden and I’m not just giving it up for f—— nothing,” he said in a conversation recorded by a federal wiretap. Blago’s instinct was that Obama – who he mockingly described as “this historic, f—— demi-god” – would be willing to pay to have his preferred choice be duly appointed.

That choice, the trial has confirmed, was Valerie Jarrett, who now rejoices in the title of senior White House adviser and Assistant to the President for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Her qualification to be a Senator? Jarrett had worked for Mayor Richard Daley and chaired the Chicago Transit Board. She had been a successful businesswoman in Chicago. But she had never held elected office and her name would not even have been mentioned had it not been for her closeness to the President-elect.

Jarrett was a long-time personal friend of Obama and his wife Michelle and that seemed to be qualification enough for the man about to enter the White House.

Tom Balanoff, president of the Service Employees International Union’s powerful Local 1 branch, took on the role as “emissary” for Jarrett, who initially wanted the Senate seat, and testified that Obama telephoned him personally to speak about it.

Next, Obama’s incoming chief of staff Rahm Emanuel spoke to John Wyma, a lobbyist, who then telephoned Blago’s right-hand man John Harris to communicate that “the president-elect would be very pleased if you appointed Valerie and he would be, uh, thankful and appreciative”.

Blago’s problem seems to have been that he wanted something a little bit more concrete than appreciation. To be precise, his response was: “F— them.”

The gratitude of a President, however, is no small thing and who knows what favour Blago might have found coming his way in due course had he duly appointed Jarrett.

That, of course, is how Chicago politics works – mutual back-scratching, a nudge and a wink. Blago’s problem, if the allegations prove to be founded, is that he took a much cruder and more literal approach to such matters.

It has also become clear from the trial that Obama wanted to make sure that Emil Jones, then President of the Illinois State Senate and the man Obama referred to as his “political godfather”, out of the seat.

The former sewer inspector had taken Obama under his wing when he was a callow state senator but he had apparently now outlived his usefulness. Perhaps Obama did not want such a reminder of his past in Washington.

Team Obama soon concluded that Blago was out of control and that the way he was dealing with the Senate vacancy could be extremely damaging to the President if he was too closely associated with it. So they pulled back and Jarrett took her White House job instead.

Quite why the President who promised hope, change and transparency thought it proper to have been trying to ease his friend into his old Senate seat just days after he had won the White House has not been answered.

There is no suggestion that what Obama was doing was anything illegal, improper or even out of the ordinary, at least in Illinois. He was simply engaging in politics as usual.

Unfortunately, politics as usual is what Candidate Obama promised to bring to an end.

It’s a measure of the minimal importance that President Obama assigns to enforcing the country’s immigration laws that he waited until this week to deliver his first speech on immigration. When he did, the president merely confirmed what is already common knowledge: the system is broken and there is nothing that his administration will do to fix it.

In equal parts high-minded and disingenuous, the speech at American University was typical of the president’s oratory. Setting himself above the political fray, Obama condemned “special interests” and partisan gridlock for holding immigration reform hostage. But he failed to note that Democrats currently rule both houses of Congress, and that the entire immigration reform effort, with its implicit amnesty for the 11 million illegal immigrants residing in this country, is itself a sop to a large special interest: the growing population of Hispanics that Democrats hope to turn into loyal voters. It was no coincidence that just prior to his speech Obama met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Typical, too, was the president’s reliance on straw men to stifle debate – in this instance, the prospect of mass deportations of illegal immigrants. This in fact is a policy that no serious immigration restrictionists advocate, and its invocation is a convenient way to foreclose serious discussion about enforcement policies that really could reduce the burden of illegal immigration. Similarly, there was the president’s now-routine posturing as a lone pragmatist seeking common-sense solutions. But that Solomonic stance is gravely undermined by the fact that this White House, like its predecessors, has opposed the pragmatic measures – especially credible enforcement and robust border security – that could provide a measure of relief from the problems of mass illegal immigration.

If the president’s speech recycled the more tired tropes of the immigration debate, the real news was that there was no news in the speech. For all the feigned urgency of his remarks, there was no evidence that the president was actually proposing to do anything to deal with the immigration issue. He outlined no specific policies, nor did he propose any specific piece of legislation.

Why then raise the issue at all? Election-year politics would seem to be the chief explanation. The speech seemed intended as a boost to troubled Democratic incumbents, particularly embattled Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Facing a tough rival in Tea Party-backed Republican candidate Sharron Angle, Reid has been actively courting his state’s Hispanics, who comprise 15 percent of the Nevada electorate. By floating the prospect of immigration reform and eventual amnesty, Reid hopes to rally support even in the absence of an actual bill. If that stratagem fails, it won’t be for lack of backing from the White House. No sooner did Obama deliver his speech than he invited Reid for a private and symbolic meeting.

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Murfreesboro detectives are investigating alleged death threats made against a candidate for the U.S. Congress.

This comes as tensions escalate over a proposed new Islamic Center in Rutherford County. http://www.icmtn.org/

Republican candidate Lou Ann Zelenik is running for the 6th district Congressional seat and said she and her staff are dealing with some scary phone threats.

“They’re saying things you wouldn’t want to hear,” said Zelenik.

According to Zelenik, the threats target her, her staff and some supporters.

The alleged calls started coming late last week after Zelenik issued this statement critical of the proposed new Islamic Center: “This Islamic Center is not part of a religious movement; it is a political movement designed to fracture the moral and political foundation of middle Tennessee.”

The comment made news not just here, but across the country. Zelenik still stands by what she said,

“Those who know me know I’m not the politically correct candidate,” said Zelenik.

Zelenik and her staff have filed a report with the Murfreesboro police department.

“We always take that very seriously,” said Major Clyde Adkison.

Adkison said police were aware the proposed new Islamic Center has polarized the community. Already, someone vandalized the proposed center’s sign at the new site. And now there are alleged threats against Zelenik.

“You’re entitled to have your opinion, but violence? That’s no way to solve any problems at all,” said Adkison.

The Islamic Center of Murfreesboro hosted an open house this past weekend to help educate the public and clear up misconceptions. Members told Newschannel5 on Monday they do not condone violence or threats. Police say there is no evidence anyone local is responsible for the threatening phone calls.

Zelenik conceded many of the threatening calls appear to be coming from out of state. She said she’ll still take precautions while on the campaign trail.

When in the course of human events, unattended grievances make it obviously necessary for citizens to reexamine the structure of their government and bring about change.

We were once a great nation, created by immigrants from foreign lands who populated a bountiful American continent.

We now witness our nation’s prestige and our domestic liberties considerably diminished. We, who suffer the consequences of a dysfunctional system of government, seek to reaffirm our founding principles and to improve upon the structure of representative government.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all human beings are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. To secure these rights, Government is instituted in society, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed.

However, if a Government controlled by special interests becomes unconcerned with the public’s wellbeing and destructive of the people’s rights, it is the duty, not just the right of the people to change the government to provide new safeguards for the citizens’ security and happiness.

The malevolent corrupting power of money on the body politic has caused repeated injuries to the public interest. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a suffering nation and a disillusioned world: